


Ferris in Wonderland

by rococorose



Category: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu | The Legend of the Legendary Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fantasy, Humor, Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 19,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7138367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rococorose/pseuds/rococorose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ferris chases Ryner into a parallel universe where she gets into all sorts of trouble. Things get even more complicated when the Dango God gets lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Spring had sprung in Imperial Nelpha. Flowers were beginning to bloom, the leaves were returning to the trees, and the clouds had disappeared to reveal a golden sun. Unfortunately, our heroes were unable to enjoy such a perfect day thanks to the latest set of orders from their king: investigate and collect a hero relic believed to be in the area. Ryner and Ferris were obviously working hard; Ryner working on his napping skills and Ferris working on her open backpack of dango, that is. Depending on how you look at it, you could say neither of them was really working at all.

Ferris was perched in a tree, dango in hand. She let the sun warm her face as she imagined the ways she could make that horrible, slave-driving king pay for making her work on such a day. She could break into his office and steal his dango, for example. Or she could break into the throne room and steal his dango. Or break into the country's dango storehouse and steal every last piece of his dango. Breaking things and eating dango were her specialties, after all. She glanced down at her partner sprawled out rather ungracefully at the base of the tree, snoring loudly and drooling unpleasantly. Perhaps he would be willing to go along with her plans? He must want to make the king suffer too, his rage only intensified by the recent cuts he had to make in his sleeping schedule (he must be down to only nineteen hours of sleep a day now). Yes, he certainly would aid her in her dango-thieving…erm…she meant king-torturing… scheme.

"RYNER!" she yelled, eager to recruit him as an accomplice in her evil plan. A sleepy moan was the only response she got. The pervert, what is he dreaming about to be moaning like that? she thought. "RYYYNERRRRRR!" she tried again, this time beginning to draw her sword. Another sleepy moan. The creep was probably dreaming of her in an embarrassing costume or something. Something with rabbit ears and a cotton tail, no doubt. Just the thought made her finish unsheathing the sword and whack him over the head without hesitation.

That got his attention. "OWWWW WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" her lazy, useless friend screamed. The idiot had probably lost whatever vile thoughts he had been dreaming, so she decided to skip calling him a pervert for once and move straight to her plan. "Listen, Ryner," she began. "How would you like to get revenge on…" she stopped. Something was wrong. "Revenge on…" Ryner encouraged. Ferris was left speechless as a pair of white fluffy ears began to grow from her friend's head. They grew longer and longer until they reached at least two feet tall. "Uhhhh" was the only response she could give as Ryner's feet began to change. His shoes burst open, revealing massive toes covered in more white fur. "Ry…Ryner…" she tried to speak, but was silenced by the short, stubby tail which had emerged from the back of Ryner's pants.

Oh, she thought, a bit worried, Ryner has infected me with his perverted ways! Now I'M picturing HIM in embarrassing costumes!

"Forget it," said Ryner a little impatiently, but still sleepily. "We should probably get going anyway." Ryner pulled a pocket watch out of his Roland military uniform. Ferris wondered just where he had gotten such a fancy watch. "We're late," Ryner announced, beginning to walk away. "We had a very important date at the library three hours ago. We are very, very late."

Ryner, still looking very much like a rabbit, was so entranced by the little pocket watch that he forgot to look where he was walking. "Watch out, idiot!" Ferris yelled a little too late as Ryner tumbled to the ground and down a fairly large hole. In fact, it was so large that Ferris couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't seen it from her tree.

"RYYYYYYNERRRRRRRR!" she yelled yet again, calling to him from the edge of the hole. If he died, who would carry her seventeen backpacks of dango? She began to panic and called his name even louder. She drew her sword. "If you don't come back here and carry my dango I'll…" she didn't have time to finish her threat as the edge she was sitting on began to crumble, sending her flying down the hole after her friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometime during the long fall Ferris began to wonder what would happen if rabbit-Ryner wasn't lying at the bottom to break her fall. Would she hit the ground? Or maybe this hole went on forever. Her worries were soon calmed as her still-unsheathed sword transformed into an open umbrella, allowing her to drift down more slowly. Ferris was certainly confused by this sudden transformation but she wasn't about to question it. Now that she was falling slower, she began to become aware of nearby floating objects, even bumping into several unidentified masses. She reached out for one. A lamp! She turned the little handle and the hole was suddenly filled with a dim light.

The sights around her astonished her. She was completely surrounded by what appeared to be the king's office furniture. Maybe the Dango Gods heard my plans and are helping me get to the king, she thought. First came the old wooden desk, followed by a flurry of papers. An unrolled map of the continent was close behind. Next was the little couch her and Ryner always sat on as they watched the king work, only sometimes bothering to help. A mirror floated by and Ferris was pleased to see that, unlike that idiot, she did not have long ears or a tail. After a few minutes of watching pencils and pens and even a small houseplant float by she suddenly landed on Sion's chair. Her relaxation was only momentary, ending as the chair tipped and she began her fall again.

The umbrella resumed its proper form as a sword and Ferris fell the last few feet into an oddly decorated room. As she got up off the floor she noticed it very much resembled a checkerboard. She lifted her head and saw the identical checkerboard walls and ceiling. Ceiling?, she thought, What happened to the hole?. Before she could assess the situation further she heard an unmistakable voice repeating "We're late we're late we're late." Ferris raised her sword towards the sound and called, "Found you, Ryner!" She ran down the checkerboard corridors after the voice and caught up just in time to see Ryner, still in rabbit form, disappear through a door. A tiny door. I'm smaller than Ryner, so I should fit too, she thought. She opened the door only to find…

Another door. And another behind that. And another and another and another. She grabbed the next doorknob and twisted. "OWWWW" she heard a voice cry. Ferris looked around for the source of the voice but did not see anyone else in the room. "Get your hand off my nose!" the voice commanded. Nose? Ferris looked down. Indeed, the door had grown a face! With eyes and a mouth and, just as the door said, her hand was gripping the doorknob-nose. She looked closer and was slightly surprised to find she recognized the face on the door.

"Aren't you that Nelpha border guard I hit with my sword a while back?" she asked. She clearly remembered leaving this guy unconscious on the ground as her and Ryner illegally entered the country. But how did he end up here, on a door? "I don't recall," answered the door. "I don't believe I've ever been hit with a sword." Maybe she was mistaken?

"Have you seen a rabbit?" Ferris asked the door. Talking to a door! She must be going crazy! The door opened its mouth to allow her to look through. There he was! Hopping away! She had to catch him. Ferris grabbed the door's nose once again.

"You won't fit like that!" said the door, "You're too big." Before she had a chance to feel insulted, the door spoke again. "Look over there on the table." How had Ferris not noticed the table earlier? Now she was sure she was crazy. Or Ryner drugged her for one of his perverted schemes…

She immediately noticed a distinct smell in the air. Dango? She ran eagerly to the little table standing in the middle of the room and, as she had predicted, there was a dango skewer and a cup of tea. "Eat Me," said a little card beside the dango. You didn't have to tell Ferris twice. She quickly and enthusiastically gobbled the first ball of dango, barely noticing when the stick grew too big for her hands. "It's… growing?" asked Ferris. No, it wasn't growing, she was shrinking! "Now I can fit!" Ferris told the door, trying to pull the remainder of the giant dango behind her as she approached. She grabbed the door's nose for the third time and twisted.

Nothing happened. "I'm locked, of course," the door told her in a very matter-of-fact tone. "You remembered the key, didn't you?" Ferris looked up, and of course there was the key sitting what seemed like a mile above her on the glass table. "Try the second ball of dango," suggested the door. Ferris tore off a more manageable chunk of the huge dango and shoved it in her mouth. She got bigger and bigger as she continued to enjoy her snack. To her great annoyance, her head hitting the ceiling interrupted her eating. She was now holding a toothpick sized dango stick and her body was filling up the whole room! "But I'll never fit like this!" she cried. "STUPID DOOR" she screamed as she tried to draw her equally giant sword, knocking over the teacup sitting on the table. "Wait!" begged the door as tea began to flood the little room. "Finish your dango!" The final ball of dango was barely the size of Ferris' smallest fingernail, but she wasn't about to say no to dango.

The final piece of dango had the desired effect, shrinking her back down. But Oh! The room was flooded with an ocean of tea! Ferris hugged the now empty dango stick tight, hoping it would be enough to keep her afloat. She grew smaller and smaller and the tea ocean grew higher and higher, until she was able to float right through the door's keyhole mouth. "Take that, idiot door!" she giggled as she realized that, with her intelligence and beauty, she had outsmarted the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Ferris continued to be tossed around by the stormy sea, long ago having lost sight of the talking door. She hugged her oversized dango stick tightly, although her soaked armour was beginning to cut into her skin. The tea which made up the ocean dyed the fabric of her shirt a slightly darker shade. Her hair was tangled and her fingers and toes were wrinkled. Damn that rabbit she thought. Damn that king! Damn that talking door!

Ferris continued to float–and to blame everybody but herself for her current situation—for quite a while longer. Eventually the rain stopped, but her mood did not improve.

The night passed by slowly, Ferris drifting in and out of sleep, her belt looped around the dango stick to keep her from falling off. She opened her eyes to a calmer morning, land still nowhere to be seen. A nearby sound caught her attention. Singing?

"Oh, a sailor's life is the life for me…" sang the voice. She was filled with hope of rescue as she tried to peek over the waves. What she saw was the farthest thing from a rescue ship. It was just a little curly haired girl, floating along on a raft not much bigger than Ferris' stick. "How I love to sail over the bounding sea…" her song continued in a voice Ferris was sure she had heard before.

The girl floated on past without even glancing at Ferris, but her hope was revived when she saw the small boat following close behind. "Wait for us, Captain," called the first of the four paddling the little canoe. "Luke, she's getting too far aheaaad!" whined the second passenger. "Don't worry. Captain Milk wouldn't run away," the one named Luke reassured.

Milk? Luke? Don't tell me… Ferris thought. It can't be! The Taboo Breakers!? How did THEY get here? It really didn't matter who they were or why they were there. She needed to be rescued right away. "Oi, Taboo Breakers! Come back here," she called to the four in the canoe. They didn't hear her, or ignored her, and simply continued to paddle after their captain. Ferris took one hand off the dango stick and tried to wave. It was no use; she had to get up higher. She threw one leg over the stick, then the other. Removing her hands, she tried to stand up.

And she fell. She was usually a strong swimmer, but her heavy clothing and armour were weighing her down. The dango stick drifted away as she struggled to stay afloat. "I'm going to drown, thanks to that idiot Ryner!"Ferris yelled between mouthfuls of tea-water. She kicked harder and, surprisingly enough, her foot hit the bottom. "Don't tell me I could touch the bottom that whole tiiiiime!" she complained to herself, her annoyance at its peak. If only a certain someone was there for her to whack with her sword…

The water continued to recede, revealing a small beach on the edge of a forest. On that beach, Captain Milk and her subordinates were sitting around a fire. Ferris didn't even bother to question how a fire had emerged from the ocean; she had already seen too many unusual things. The captain was still singing her little song, and the others were breathing heavily from the effort of trying to catch up to her. "You!" screamed Ferris accusingly, "Why did you leave me! I could have drowned!"

Milk, not having noticed the soaked, seaweed covered Ferris, turned around. "Ferris is here? But that means Ryner's here too!" reasoned the slightly over excited captain. The words were barely out of her mouth when a dripping wet white rabbit washed up on the beach. The rabbit recovered quickly, pulling out his pocket watch before running off into the forest. "Wait, Ryner," Ferris called after him. She was about to take off after him when she felt something grab her. "Oh no, you don't," said Milk, "Ryner will finally be free of you and your evil, enslaving ways!"

"What! It's not like that!" Ferris tried to explain before being cut off by Milk screaming for Ryner to run faster. Ferris kicked her legs, succeeding in escaping the young captain's grip, and chased her friend into the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't write the song Milk is singing. It's the song the Dodo sings in Disney's Alice in Wonderland


	4. Chapter 4

Ferris had been running for what felt like hours—but was in reality only a few minutes—into the forest. The path was thinning, weeds overgrown along the edges. The sun was dim through the leaves, creating an eerie, green light. Ferris hardly noticed, too focused on finding that rabbit and chopping its damn head off. How dare Ryner cause her such pain, such a feeling of emptiness? Emptiness in her stomach, that is. Her dango stash had run out quite a while ago.

As Ferris continued down the path, she began to feel like she was being followed. She could feel a pair of eyes on her back. Putting a hand on her sword, she proceeded more cautiously. The feeling did not go away. Spinning around too fast for a normal person to see, she pointed her sword toward the thick trees and yelled "FOUND YOU!"

Nobody there. "Huh," she said to herself, "I was sure…" She usually wasn't wrong about these things, but clearly there was nobody in the forest in front of her. Just the occasional bird or squirrel rustling the leaves. Totally normal. "A little too normal..." Ferris said. In fact, it was the first normal scene since she fell down the hole. After standing still a few more seconds, Ferris decided to continue on her walk. Less than five minutes passed before the feeling returned again. This time Ferris was sure she was being watched. Once again, she spun around. And there, half hidden in a bush, she saw somebody she would have preferred to never see again.

As Ferris stood there, sword ready, the figure in the bush struggled to extract his pink hair from the branches. He looked rather ridiculous, tangled up like that. "You IDIOT," screamed a little voice from somewhere above Ferris. "You RUINED EVERYTHING! Our only job was to follow her, and you go and get STUCK IN A BUSH!" A large scythe fell from an overhead tree branch, followed closely by Kuu as she moved to help her brother. "Sorry…" replied Sui, still quite stuck. "Maybe I'll just have to cut your hair off," snapped the obviously annoyed Kuu. Ferris looked open mouthed at the two Gastark soldiers, still too shocked to speak. Luckily, Kuu answered all Ferris' questions without her having to ask. "We were following you," she said matter-of-factly, "because we thought you would lead us to the magical relics."

"Oh," answered Ferris, "I'm sorry to disappoint, but we're not looking for relics today. Actually, I'm looking for Ryner…"

"What's a… a Ryner?" asked Sui, looking confused. What's a Ryner? thought Ferris, How can he not remember Ryner? "Ryner?," Ferris began, "Pervert, about this tall, alpha stigma…"

Sui, who was now free from the bush but still picking twigs from his hair, jumped back at the mention of the alpha stigma. Kuu gasped and paled. "You're following an alpha stigma?" asked Kuu a bit nervously. "Of course," answered Ferris, "he's my punching bag and tea-drinking companion."

The two siblings looked at each other. "How sad," said Sui. "Quite sad indeed," replied Kuu. "Very, very sad," Sui continued. Ferris looked back and forth between the two. "Well," said Kuu, "You know what happened the last girl who went running into a forest after the bearer of cursed eyes." "Of course she knows the story. Everyone knows that story," Sui said in a low voice. Kuu looked up at Ferris, "Poor thing."

"What happened?" Ferris asked curiously, finally lowering her sword. She shouldn't be wasting time, but a few minutes couldn't hurt much. Sui looked at her, mildly surprised. "You have never heard the story? We'll tell you, then!"

The pink haired duo cleared their throats. "It happened on a day much like today, not very long ago," said Kuu. "Quite like today, not long ago at all," said Sui…

.

.

A few years ago, in a forest just north of Roland, an odd group of people made their home. They claimed to be in possession of 'Gods Eyes'. Separated from humans, this group lived a fairly peaceful and normal life… until lunchtime.

Of course the villagers knew of their neighbours in the forest, but the funny thing about the 'Gods Eyes' monsters is that they look just like everyone else.

One bright and sunny afternoon, one such bearer of 'Gods Eyes' by the name of Tiir set out pick up some groceries. Tiir sulked as he strolled down the forest path. He hated going to town, but it was his turn so there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Exiting the forest, Tiir wandered his way through the village's winding streets, eventually finding his way to the grocery store. He hated being around humans, but even his 'Gods Eyes' family had to eat. He figured he might as well get this over with as quickly as possible, so he grabbed a cart and crept into the crowded store. He took a quick look at his shopping list. Pretty normal. Eggs and milk and apples and all that. He weaved up and down the aisles, being careful to stay away from those disgusting pests called humans. First the produce, then the bakery, followed by the frozen food.

Relief began to set in as Tiir crossed off more and more items on his list. Finally it was time to pay for his food and go home. The girl at the cash register was pleasant enough, as far as humans went. "Have a nice day," she said, smiling. Tiir didn't respond, not wasting time as he grabbed his bags and bolted for the door.

"How rude," mumbled the young cashier, watching that weird guy walk out the door. The girl turned her attention back to her work, ringing in the next customer. "Excuse me, but this bag isn't mine," said the woman who had just paid for her groceries. Darn! That weirdo must have forgotten a bag! The girl put up her 'lane closed' sign and took off out the door after Tiir.

Some time later, Tiir was back home restocking his cupboards. He quickly realised a bag was missing. "Darn! I forgot tonight's supper!" he moaned, imagining the childrens' wrath upon learning that their dango had been forgotten.

That's around the time Tiir heard a knock on his front door. "Sir," a voice said, "You forgot a bag! I chased you through the forest and now I…" Tiir swung open the door. Looks like supper would be served after all.

The girl reached out to hand Tiir the bag, and Splat! That was the end of her! Tiir gobbled her up! "I guess I'll skip the dango tonight," Tiir said to himself, his stomach full of the girl as he licked his lips and returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

.

.

"The end," announced Kuu as the pair finished their story. "Wasn't that a lovely story?" asked Sui.

Ferris felt ridiculous, wasting her time on these two. Of course Ryner didn't eat people! Now she was even farther behind the rabbit, thanks to Sui and Kuu. She glanced over at them. They were still going on about the scary cursed eyes monsters, too heated in their discussion to notice Ferris slip away and continue her journey down the path deeper into the forest.


	5. Chapter 5

It must have been shortly after lunchtime when Ferris finally emerged from the thickest part of the forest. Or at least it would have been, had Ferris had any lunch. "I'm starviiiing!" she whined to nobody in particular. It was boring by herself, with nobody to complain to or boss around. She wished Ryner were here to carry her to the nearest restaurant, or better yet, carry 50 backpacks full of snacks so she wouldn't get this hungry in the first place. Ferris sat down in the grass facing the trees from which she had emerged, her energy just about used up. There was an inn behind her in which she could have slept peacefully, but her legs refused take her that far.

Ferris

She could almost hear Ryner calling her name.

Ferris!

A hallucination? Now she was sure she was dying of starvation.

"Ferris!"

"What do you want!? Let me die in peace!" Ferris shouted, spinning around to yell at the imaginary Ryner. She swung her sword in an attempt to cut the illusion away. To her surprise, the flat side of her sword made contact with an even more surprised—and real—Ryner.

"Idiot! We're already late as it is! Get off your ass!" Ryner stomped his rabbit foot. "Late! Late! Late!"

How dare he call the beautiful Ferris an idiot? She prepared to hit him with her sword again, with the sharp side this time. He interrupted her rage by grabbing her and pushing her towards the inn door from which he must have come moments ago. "We're late. Go grab those letters I left on my desk," Ryner commanded her.

"Like hell I'll take orders from you!" she shouted a little too late. The door had already slammed in her face. She knew Ryner wasn't going to let her out until she got those letters. She really didn't have the strength to cut the door down right now, let alone cut Ryner's head off once she got out, so she decided to look around the inn for some food. And she might as well grab those letters while she was here…

Stomach growling, Ferris made her way upstairs looking for the room Ryner had been staying in. She peered in each doorway, looking for a clue. Finally she decided it must be the room with the unmade bed, as if whoever had been staying there had just gotten up. She kicked the door all the way open. It hit the wall with a thud, chipping the paint. She would have to remember to tell Sion to take the repairs out of Ryner's pay check.

On the desk, just where Ryner said they would be, sat a few letters from the king. Those letters went unnoticed, fading into the background of the plate of dango also sitting on the desk. Ferris said a hurried prayer to the dango gods and then raced across the room to her beloved snack. She picked up a stick and popped the first ball into her mouth. Ferris chewed slowly, savouring each bite after her long morning without food. "Quite a unique flavour," commented Ferris, mouth still full of food. Not too sweet, but with a subtle taste of…something. She couldn't figure out what. She pondered for a few more seconds and then, suddenly, her head hit the ceiling. Not again.

"Ferris! What's taking so long!" called Ryner as he climbed the stairs of the inn. He was silenced as Ferris' growing foot smacked him, pushing him back down the stairs and out the front door.

"MONSTEEEEEEERRRRRRRR" Ryner screamed in terror, running away from the still growing leg. Ferris was coming close to filling the entire building.

"Help! Somebody help me! Monster!" he continued to cry as he ran out the front gate of the inn. Ferris was almost happy to see Ryner calling somebody other than himself a monster. Almost. She would have been happy, had she not been the target of his insult. If her arms weren't trapped through windows, he would already be on the ground with her sword aimed at his neck.

"Monster? Where?" Ferris heard a female voice ask. "Oh my gosh! it really is a monster, captain!" said a male voice that did not belong to Ryner. Ferris opened the shutters on the window in front of her eyes and peered out. Just as she suspected, the taboo breaker squadron stood by the front gate of the inn looking up at her. "Don't worry everyone! I know just what to do," exclaimed Milk. This was her chance to impress Ryner. If she could defeat the monster, she would win his heart for sure! He would definitely go out with her! "We must simply pull the monster out the chimney," said the young captain, proud that she had come up with such a genius plan by herself. Ryner looked doubtful. "How will we do that?" he asked, rabbit ears flopped down in a worried looking pose. "Easy," said Milk, "All we need is… is…"At that very moment, Toale Nelphi came strolling down the path carrying a very large ladder.

"What we need is Toale with a ladder," finished Milk. "Why do you have a ladder, anyway?" she asked Toale. "Well," began Toale, "it just so happens that I volunteered to help the elderly innkeeper clean out her chimney." It looked like today was Milk's lucky day. Ferris also felt relieved. Maybe he could pull her out the chimney. She couldn't stay in the inn much longer if her growing continued.

Toale, cleaning supplies strapped to his back, was half way up the ladder when he noticed two large eyes peering at him through the window.

"MONSTEEEERR!"

Toale came crashing down to the ground. He tried to make his escape, but the taboo breakers were too quick. Luke grabbed Toale and hauled him up the ladder to the roof. He handed a strong looking golden thread to Toale. "Tie this around the monster, then pull her out," commanded Luke before shoving Toale down the chimney. Toale's ungraceful descent stirred up a thick, black cloud of dust. Unlucky for him, Ferris happened to be allergic to dust. She sniffed once, twice, trying her hardest to hold in her sneeze. Then, suddenly, "ACHOO!" Her sneeze sent a powerful air current through the inn, blasting Toale back up the chimney. He flew high up above the inn and entered the clouds.

"Well that was a flop," Ryner said, "What do we do now, Milk?"

Milk thought for a moment. "We'll burn the inn down!" she said excitedly. Moe pulled a match from his pocket and handed it to her. "Here you go, captain," he said, approving of her plan. On Milk's orders, the taboo breakers scurried to find firewood. The job was simple, given the amount of wooden furniture Ferris' feet had pushed out of the building. A pile of flammable materials quickly built up around Ferris, and on top of that pile sat Ryner's letters from Sion. Ferris saw her chance.

"Hey Ryner," she called, "Those fools are going to burn your letters." Milk lit the match. "NOOO," Ryner screamed in a panic. "Wait, Milk!"

It was too late. The fire had been lit, and the letters were burning. Ryner couldn't save her this time. Ferris looked around for something to help her escape her current situation. The Dango! Ferris carefully picked up the dango skewer with her fingernails and scraped the second ball off with her teeth. She immediately began to shrink.

As Ferris shrunk, Ryner looked at the old clock burning in the pile of firewood. "Oh no," he moaned, "I'm so late!" Stirred into a panic, Ryner took off down the path towards a lovely looking meadow. "Wait for me, Ryner," Ferris yelled, but she was already too small for her voice to carry. She squeezed through the crack under the inn door, only to be stopped by Milk. Milk picked her up between her thumb and index finger. "There you are, Ferris," she said, "do you have another match?" Ferris bit Milk's finger and fell to the ground, scrambling to get away and go after Ryner. She ran towards the meadow, but Ryner was already out of sight.

.

.

Later that day, the elderly innkeeper made her way down the forest path, returning from a short shopping trip. She pushed open the front gate. Her bags fell from her hands. Tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Before her, she saw her life's work reduced to a pile of ashes. In the middle of that pile of ashes sat a cute little girl and four boys. "We told you to be careful with matches," said the white haired boy in a caring voice as he treated the girl's minor burns. "You sure did get the monster though! Burning the inn was an excellent plan indeed." The elderly innkeeper couldn't believe what she was hearing. Criminals! Vandals! Arsonists! These were the hooligans responsible for ruining the elderly innkeeper's life. In that moment the elderly innkeeper swore to take revenge on this gang of delinquents, even if it was the last thing she did.


	6. Chapter 6

Ferris, at her current height, couldn't see over the grass in the meadow. In fact, she was exactly half the height of the majority of the surrounding vegetation. She would never find Ryner like this! She couldn't see, and even if she could her legs were too small to carry her fast enough. He must be miles away by now, especially with his rabbit speed. She decided that before she did anything else she should find something edible to make her grow again. But what if her next snack shrunk her even smaller instead? Ferris leaned against the stem of an iris as she thought. There must be some way out of this mess!

"Sister Ferris!" squeaked a voice. Ferris looked around. "Up here!"

Ferris looked up. Sitting on top of the iris was her sister, leaning down from a petal. Her new friends, Arua and Kuku, popped out from the tops of nearby flowers.

"Iris? What are you doing here?" asked Ferris. "I was delivering a message to the wild beast! I'm heading home now!" Iris answered. "Sister, did you notice something strange about the wild beast lately? He grew ears! And a tail!" Ferris always felt happy seeing her sister. Nobody else understood how terrible Ryner truly was. Most people labelled him as lazy, but Iris was one of the few besides Ferris to fully grasp Ryner's flawed character. It was fun to laugh at Ryner with somebody else who thought the way she did.

However, this was no time for laughing. Maybe Iris knew something to help. "Hey Iris! What was in those letters you delivered?" Ferris asked her sister. "Dunno. Sion said they were important, though! I took special care to get them to Ryner! Isn't Iris great?"

Ferris probably should have done more to save those letters. Oh well, nothing could be done about it now.

Iris, Arua and Kuku were discussing how beautiful the afternoon was from the tops of their flowers when Ferris had a brilliant idea. If she climbed a flower, she could see over the plants and figure out where she was! Ferris grabbed a stem and began to inch up. Finally she plopped down onto a powdery yellow bloom. The meadow continued on for a little longer, and after that the path spiralled back into the forest. There was no other path, so this must be the way Ryner had come. Ferris saw nothing that might help her grow, but at least she now knew where she was going.

"A weed!" shouted Kuku, "Iris, your sister is in a weed!" Ferris looked down. Sure enough, she was sitting on a dandelion, a weed, not a flower. "Get the weed," yelled Iris. With some help from the wind, Arua grabbed a wet leaf and threw it towards Ferris. She was knocked off the dandelion, crashing in a mess of water drops. As much as Ferris wanted to return fire, she had to get going after Ryner. There would be plenty of time to play with the children later. For now, she waved goodbye to her sister and continued on her quest.

Iris suddenly remembered something. "Ferris! Brother Lucile was looking for you!"

Ferris didn't hear and kept walking.


	7. Chapter 7

Darkness was already beginning to fall by the time Ferris made it to the edge of the flower meadow. How strange, Ferris thought, It was still the afternoon a moment ago. Ferris didn't worry about it too much. After all, everything was strange here. Wherever "here" was.

Ferris stepped out from under the flowers. Looking up, she noticed yet another oddity; the sun wasn't setting, but instead was being covered by thick black smoke. The smoke emerged from the forest in front of Ferris and made its way up, up, up until it was expanding over the trees and the meadow and filling the sky. Is that how night works here?

Ferris was about to dismiss the smoke as another strange working of this world, but then she remembered where smoke usually comes from: fire. Charging into the smoking forest would be dangerous indeed, but what if somebody needed her help? What if Ryner needed her help? Making up her mind, she pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose in an attempt to protect her lungs and dashed into the trees.

Ferris only had to travel a short distance before arriving at the source of the smoke. She was relieved to see there was no fire; instead, the smoke appeared to be originating from the top of a large mushroom. Smoking mushrooms definitely required investigation. Ferris, still three inches tall, wrapped her arms around the stem and began to climb. She dug her sword deep into the underside of the mushroom top and cut out large pieces, creating a tunnel. Then, she continued her climb.

Ferris poked her head out of the top of the mushroom, only to duck back down less than half a second later. Sitting on top of the mushroom was none other than Miran Froaude, the creepy guy with a history of attacking Ferris and Ryner. Ferris would almost have preferred a fire. With Ryner's help I can fight him, but can I do it alone?

Ferris was about to make her escape when she heard a voice: "I know you're there. Why don't you come up?" So much for her stealthy exit.

With a nervous sigh, Ferris slowly made her way back up through the hole in the mushroom. "Sit," Froaude commanded. Ferris sat down. Froaude was lounging across the top of the mushroom, a pipe in his mouth. Every few seconds he puffed out a mouthful of black smoke.

After a few minutes of silence, Ferris spoke up. "You aren't trying to kill me?" she asked. Froaude blew out a smoke cloud in the shape of a dog. "I will not kill you," he replied, "Killing you would be pointless. You are not an inconvenience to my master."

"Your master?" Ferris tried to ask.

Froaude continued, "Ryner Lute is an inconvenience to my master. But I can tell Ryner Lute is not with you, and therefore there is no reason to kill you." He took another breath from his pipe, held it in a moment, and then exhaled.

"But who is your master?" asked Ferris a second time. Froaude blew a mouthful of smoke towards her.

"You're polluting the air with that, you know," Ferris said. "Just look at the sky."

"I can't see the sky," Froaude said. "There's too much smoke in the way."

"That's what I'm saying! Your smoke is blocking the sky!"

"Yes."

"Yes!"

Ferris was quite annoyed at this point. "It's too dark! I can't see anything," she said, her voice slightly raised.

"I like the dark," answered Froaude.

"Well I don't!" answered Ferris.

"Why?" asked Froaude. He blew out three more dog-shaped smoke clouds.

"Because I can't see!" answered Ferris.

"That's because it's dark," said Froaude.

"Yes!"

"Yes."

"Stop smoking that!" said Ferris.

"Why?" asked Froaude.

"Your smoke is polluting the air," Ferris said. "Just look at the sky!"

"I can't see the sky," Froaude said, "There's too much smoke in the way."

Ferris, who had had quite enough of this nonsense, jumped down the hole in the mushroom. Turning around, she yelled, "If I were more than three inches high, I would step on you!"

"I could say the same about you," Froaude replied.

Ferris turned back around, hand on her sword, only to see Froaude begin to grow. As he grew to his usual height, he told Ferris, "One will make you grow taller, the other will make you shrink." He began to walk away, deeper into the forest.

"One of what?" asked Ferris. Looking over his shoulder, Froaude said, "the dango, of course." Exhaling a few more breaths of smoke, Froaude disappeared.

Once again, the Dango God had come to her rescue. Ferris looked up at the Dango Tree above her. She threw her sword, knocked some off the branch, and ate the first ball.

And she grew.

And grew.

And grew.

.

.

The Dango God looked down on the world from her comfortable throne in the clouds. The world was progressing in a typical fashion. She could see a lake of tea with the tide rising and receding. She could see a tall forest. Somewhere in the middle of that forest, a strange guy was gobbling up a grocery store clerk. A pink haired duo was travelling nearby. A little farther down the path, an inn was burning while an old woman wept. Five suspicious characters were running away from the crime scene. Some kids were playing on top of flowers. In the other direction she could see a rabbit eared guy running towards a castle. Directly beneath her, a scary guy was creating smoke clouds. Nothing out of the ordinary. Totally, completely ordinary. The Dango God wondered how that pretty blonde girl was doing. She must be quite confused, after all. This place was apparently very different from the world from which she had come.

The Dango God finally caught sight of the girl as the smoke began to clear. Suddenly, the girl threw her sword to strike the Dango Tree.

"NO!" screamed the outraged Dango God, but it was too late.


	8. Chapter 8

Ferris grew.

And grew.

And grew.

As her head reached the top of the trees, she heard a cry from above. Had somebody yelled "NO" or was it just her imagination? She couldn't tell, because somebody much, much louder was also yelling.

"Soldier! Soldier! Soldieeeeeer!" yelled the voice. Ferris reached up to pluck the source of the voice off the top of her humongous head.

Between Ferris' fingers was Noa, the princess of Estabul, shouting as loud as she could about soldiers and invasions and armies. "But I'm not invading!" argued Ferris.

Noa didn't seem to believe her. "If you're not invading, why are you wearing armor?"

"Seriously, I'm not invading!" said Ferris again.

"Do you have a sword?"

Ferris looked down at her sword. "Well, yes, I do, but…"

"Do you work for Roland's king?"

"Yes, I do, but really…"

Ferris had to admit, she did look quite a lot like an invading soldier. But didn't Roland and Estabul have an alliance? She knew the best course of action would be to shrink as fast as possible and avoid conflict. She put the second ball of dango in her mouth.

Ferris shrunk until she was exactly where she had started, three inches high. Would she ever get back to her normal size? She had an idea; as challenging as it was, Ferris took the third and final piece of dango and nibbled only the edge, not a bite more. At last, she grew back to her regular height.

"Much better!" she said as she stepped back onto the path to follow Ryner, putting the final ball of the magic dango in her pocket in case she needed it later.

Ferris didn't notice that the Dango Tree had disappeared.

.

.

Noa was in shock over what had just happened. One minute she had been reading a book up in a tree branch and the next she was trapped between a Roland soldier's fingers. This could only mean one thing: an invasion. She had to hurry back to her castle and prepare for conflict. She hated to fight, but if it was her only choice, and if it was to protect the people who counted on her, she would raise an army of her own. Once she was freed from the soldier's grasp, she hopped out of the trees and turned towards her home.

.

.

The Elderly Innkeeper had been searching far and wide for those bad kids but they were too quick for an old woman to follow. She had almost lost hope of revenge but, to her surprise, a giant girl appeared in the sky. It wasn't the girl who had burned the inn, but she looked to be about the same age. Maybe they were friends? The Elderly Innkeeper decided to follow the giant girl, who was now shrinking, in hope she led her to that group of troublemakers. The angry, determined Elderly Innkeeper turned onto the path after Ferris.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oopsies... I just realized I only transferred the first half of the story over from that other fanfic hellsite. Good thing there is literally nobody left in this fandom to notice :'D  
> Anyway, I'm posting the rest of the story up until the end right now.

Before the Dango God could stop her, the pretty blonde girl had thrown her sword, severing a branch of the Dango Tree which bound the God to this world. With the tree damaged, there was nothing left to hold the Dango God down. She began to float higher and higher, past the clouds, past the throne on which she usually sat, and finally past the sky. She floated past the sun and stars. Eventually, the space around the Dango God narrowed into a dark tunnel.

As she floated up, the Dango God's eyes began to adjust to the lack of light. Around her, she saw Dango of all colours and teacups spilling over to create waterfalls. Even in a situation such as this, the Dango God couldn't resist her favourite snack. She reached out, grabbed a stick of dango and bit off the first ball.

Nothing happened.

Why aren't I growing? Thought the Dango God. Is the dango broken? She ate the second ball, and just as she had expected, she didn't shrink.

As she floated up, the thick clouds of dango and tea thinned. Behind them, she could see trees and houses floating past. She saw a chair and tried to grab on. The chair continued to ascend through the tunnel until it finally flipped, sending the Dango God off. She continued to drift upwards for a few more minutes before she saw a light above her. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the floor of a fairly typical checkerboard patterned room, with no furniture besides a table and a door. There was a key on the table, and the floor appeared to be stained with tea.

"Hello," said the door. The Dango God greeted the door. This one seemed polite, as far as doors went.

"Where am I?" asked the Dango God.

"You're at the door between worlds," answered the door. "But you can't go back to your own world. The tunnel has been sealed. Your only choice is to go forward."

The Dango God wanted to go home, but it seemed that was not an option. How could she re-open the tunnel? The door said there was no way to do it, so it must be impossible. The Dango God could hardly stay in this room forever, so instead of worrying and crying she grabbed the key off the table and stuck it in the door. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

.  
.

The Dango God opened her eyes to a bright spring afternoon. She appeared to have been sleeping up in a tree. I had the weirdest dream…

The Dango God looked down. Below her, she saw a brown-haired, sleepy-eyed man. He opened his mouth to speak.

"You awake yet, Ferris?"


	10. Chapter 10

Ferris?

"Hey Ferris! Get off your ass and help me with these backpacks!" The sleepy guy looked annoyed.

"My name is not Ferris. I am Dango God," said the Dango God.

"Whatever. Just come help me!" snapped the Sleepy Guy.

How could anyone dare to boss around a Dango God? And why would anyone need so many backpacks? She picked one up and peeked inside.

"They're full of dango? That seems perfectly reasonable," said the Dango God as she swung the backpack over her shoulder. This Sleepy Guy was clearly a follower of the ways of the dango. A loyal worshipper such as this one deserved her assistance.

"Huh," the Sleepy Guy said, puzzled, "I didn't actually expect you to help."

Well, if he didn't need help, there was no point in wasting precious energy. The Dango God gently set her backpack on the ground, careful not to damage its sacred contents. The Sleepy Guy sighed as he picked it up and threw it on his back along with the other 10 backpacks. Then he began to walk away.

The Dango God hesitated before following. She shouldn't be wandering off in the forest with strange men—he might be a pervert or something!—but she really had no other choice. She was in a strange world, unable to get home. This guy might be able to help her. "Hey Ferris, hurry it up, would you?" the Sleepy Guy called back to her. The Dango God, having made up her mind, ran to catch up. "I told you, I am Dango God," she reminded him for the second of many times that day.

.

.

Ferris, content to finally be back to her normal size, strolled a little more comfortably down the path. How terrible it had been to be three inches tall! She had had to take twenty steps to equal one of her normal steps! She wondered briefly why she hadn't stayed giant and simply stepped over the forest. That would have been a much easier way to catch up to Ryner. Ferris dismissed the idea. Better to stay out of trouble.

Ferris, head down and lost in thought, failed to notice the large tree dividing the path down the middle. "What? Who? Huh?" the surprised Ferris shouted as her head collided with the stump. She prepared to draw her sword. Who dared get in the way of a great beauty such as herself? "Prepare to die!" she shouted at the aggressor. She swung, and her sword dug through the bark with a thump. "Huh?" Ferris said again as she realized her mistake. At least nobody was around to see the embarrassing episode. Or so she thought…

"Good afternoon, Ferris," an all too familiar, emotionless, downright creepy voice said. Ferris turned to see her brother standing a little way away from the path. He smiled at her. Ferris had seen that smile a million times before, but it never failed to send a chill down her spine. Of course she loved her brother, but something about him was…off?

"I frighten you?" he asked in his monotone voice.

"N-no," Ferris stuttered. It was like he could read her mind or something.

"I'll go away, then, if you don't want my help…" Lucile's image began to fade, at first becoming translucent, and then disappearing altogether. "Wait, please" Ferris begged her brother.

"Yes?" asked Lucile.

"Where am I?"

"You are here."

"But where is here?"

"Here."

It seemed that no matter where Ferris was, Lucile was still a weird guy.

"Iris said you were looking for me," Ferris prompted. Maybe she could get a real answer out of her brother.

"Did you get Sion's letter?" he asked. It seemed Ferris wouldn't be getting any answers after all. But she could hardly tell her scary brother that she had let Milk and the others burn the super important letter.

"Yes, I got it," she answered. It wasn't exactly a lie. She did, in fact, get the letter; she just didn't get the chance to read it. Lucile smiled again. Did he know that she wasn't telling him the full story? Probably.

"Since you're not busy today, I have a favor to ask," said Lucile. Was he trying to sound less scary? It certainly wasn't working.

"Why do you think I'm not busy?" Ferris asked.

"You read the letter, didn't you?"

"Of course."

"So you're not busy."

Ferris decided to play along. "You're right. I'm usually busy, so a minute ago I forgot that I'm not busy."

"Good," said Lucile. "I would like you to meet some friends of mine. You'll find them if you follow the left side of the path."

Ferris didn't even know Lucile had friends. She had to find Ryner, but she couldn't say no to her brother. "Okay?" she said, sounding like she was asking a question. "But if you see Ryner, can you tell him where I am?"

Lucile looked at her for a moment. 'Look' perhaps wasn't the right word, since his eyes were closed. Somehow, Ferris knew he could see her anyway. "I will tell him," said Lucile, finally. He started to fade again.

"By the way," he said as he disappeared, "All my friends are mad."

.

.

"So where are we, exactly?" asked the Dango God. She and the Sleepy Guy had been walking for about an hour through a thick forest. The surrounding trees were comforting. Trees looked the same no matter what world you were in. However, curiously, the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy had passed by a river flowing with, not tea, but water. Curious indeed.

The Sleepy Guy gave her an odd look. "We're in Nelpha, idiot. You should know. You beat up the border guards to get us in." The Dango God couldn't recall beating anybody up. Certainly not somebody as important as border guards. The Sleepy Guy continued, "Pretty soon Nelpha's military is going to catch up with us. We'd better get mov …"The Sleepy Guy's words were cut off.

"This is Nelpha's military! Stop where you are!" The Sleepy Guy was right. It seemed the head of the military was calling to them with some sort of megaphone to amplify his voice.

"Shit," whispered the Sleepy Guy.

The Dango God was surprised to see that there were no carts full of dango among the soldiers standing a little ways away. Perhaps they had not been brought over to the ways of the dango? The Dango God saw an opportunity.

"Good afternoon, friends," the Dango God waved to the men in front of her, "Have you heard about dango? I can teach you, if you'd like!"

"What do you think you're doing!?," the Sleepy Guy smacked her arm, "aw, forget it. WHAT I SEEK IS THUNDER! IZUCHI!" Lightning shot from the Sleepy Guy's hands and struck the centre of the opposing army. The soldiers scrambled to avoid the attack.

"Don't just stand there! Help me slow them down so we can escape," commanded the Sleepy Guy. "Uhh, okay?" said the Dango God. She began to wave her hands wildly like the Sleepy Guy had done a moment ago. "I.. uhh.. WHAT I.. uhh.. THUNDER! KABOOOM!" the Dango God yelled. Of course, nothing happened.

"Ferris?! Do you even know how to use magic!?" The Sleepy Guy looked somewhere between annoyed, angry and panicked. "Use your sword, idiot!"

The Dango God was about to remind him that she was Dango God, not Ferris, but the look on his face made her keep her mouth shut. For the first time, she touched the sword at her hip. Surprised to discover how strong her body was, she lifted the heavy sword above her head. "THUNDEEEEER!" she screamed as she charged at the enemy. She swung her sword at the first soldier…

And missed. The sword made contact with a large tree, the blade digging deep into the trunk. The Dango God pulled and pulled but the sword wouldn't come out.

"Ferris! Stop messing around!" she could hear the Sleepy Guy behind her.

"I am not Ferris! I am Dango God!"

The Dango God had a brilliant idea. She was a Dango God, and dango would be her weapon. She rushed back to where the Sleepy Guy stood and opened a backpack of dango. She hurriedly ate every last ball of dango, leaving nothing but the sharp sticks.

"Ferris, that has got to be a dango eating record, but is this really the time…"

The Dango God wasn't listening. Once again, unleashing what she believed to be the customary battle cry of this world, "THUNDER!", the Dango God charged at the army. With inhuman speed, she began to throw the sharp dango sticks. One by one, the soldiers around her fell unconscious on the ground. Before long, the entire army had been defeated.

Content with her demonstration of the power of dango, the Dango God let the Sleepy Guy help her pull her sword from the tree and they continued on their journey.

.

.

The Elderly Innkeeper arrived at a crossroads in the path. Before her was a large tree, dividing the road in two. A sign was nailed onto the tree. The arrow pointing right read "Castle", while the arrow pointing left read "Mad-". Mad what? Moss covered the rest of the sign. Looking down both roads, the Elderly Innkeeper eventually decided to travel to the right. After all, why would a pretty young girl like that want to visit somebody who was mad?


	11. Chapter 11

About an hour after her conversation with Lucile, Ferris found herself standing outside a large gate, the kind that usually surrounded fancy gardens. However, this gate could hardly be considered fancy, with its cracked, moss covered boards. Ferris looked up at the sign. "MaD HErO," it read, the letters old and fading. Directly beneath that, another sign: "PLEaSe knoCK."

Lucile had said his friends were mad. With a nervous sigh, Ferris raised her hand and tapped lightly on the rotting wood. The boards creaked, and she lowered her fist for fear of breaking through. "Coming!" a voice called from the other side.

A lock clicked and a… something… peered out. "Yes?" it asked.

"You see," began Ferris nervously, "I heard you know my brother…"

"Are you selling something?" asked the thing.

"No."

"We don't need our driveway paved right now."

"I'm not a driveway salesperson…"

"We don't even have a driveway, actually."

"But I'm not selling anything!"

"You're not?"

"No."

"Are you a campaigning politician?"

"Nope."

"Girl Scout?"

"Wrong again."

"Jehovah's Witness?"

"No. Like I said, my brother sent me."

"Why didn't you say so? Come on in!"

The thing closed the door, undid the chain lock, and then swung the door open all the way. Ferris looked in at the garden, which was just about as well-kept as the front gate. Bushes and vines grew out of control, and the remains of a brick house lay in a pile off to one corner. In the centre stood a large table, matching the gate with all its moss and mould and termites, surrounded by six chairs, only one of which was currently occupied. The thing that opened the door turned to the thing sitting at the table.

"Look, dearest Demon, we have a guest!"

"A guest! I'm so glad, dearest Hero. I was feeling lonely…"

The Hero looked at the Demon. The Demon looked at the Hero.

"But I was even lonelier before my Hero found me" said the Demon with sparkling eyes.

The Hero pulled out a chair for Ferris and she sat down gratefully after her long walk. She felt far less grateful after the first of many bugs crawled out of the wood and across her leg. She accepted the teacup that the Hero offered her. It was chipped, but it looked clean enough. Despite her awkwardness, Ferris couldn't resist asking the most crucial of questions: "Um, excuse me Mister Hero, but do you have any dango to go with the tea?"

"Dango!" said the Hero.

"Dango!" said the Demon. "Of course there is no dango! Haven't you heard?"

Ferris was confused. Back home, dango and tea was a fairly standard combination for snack time. Up until now, it seemed to be the same in this world, too. "What happened to the dango?" she asked.

"Well," began the Demon, "It happened earlier this afternoon. We were enjoying tea and dango, when suddenly I thought, 'hey, does anybody here actually know how to make dango? I forget how'. My friend Hero forgot too. So we asked a nearby restaurant, only to discover that their recipe card for dango had mysteriously gone missing, and the chef had forgotten what ingredients to use to make more."

"It seems," continued the Hero, "that everybody forgot how to make dango at the exact same time. The only dango left is what was already made before this afternoon."

"Maybe something is wrong with the Dango God…" suspected Ferris.

"What's worse," said the Demon, "the king has been sending his soldiers around to collect all the remaining dango in the world. Rumour has it, he's keeping it all for himself."

Ferris stood up and slammed her hands on the table hard enough to make the old wood creak. "That king! A traitor to dango everywhere!" she shouted. She had to do something to rescue all that dango from the evil tyrant. The more she thought, the more it made sense. Why else would she have been sent to this world? Obviously she was meant to be the beautiful heroine, destined to return the precious dango to the oppressed population. Lucile had obviously sent her here knowing she would uncover her true mission while talking with the Hero and the Demon. That scary brother of hers was always helping her out.

Ferris' train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a crash. The boards of the fence on the far side of the garden snapped, and in charged Ryner. "Wait for me!" Ferris called after him as he ran across the garden. "No time for that," answered Ryner, "I have to get to the castle!" Ryner tried to run off, but the Hero was faster. It grabbed Ryner around the ears and pulled him back to the table.

"You can't leave yet," said the Demon, "You just got here. We were so lonely before you got here."

"Yeah," said the Hero, "besides, you have to pay for the repairs to our fence."

"Pay?" said Ryner, "but I spent all my money on dango earlier this morning!"

The Hero didn't look impressed. It stared at Ryner for a long time, clearly deep in thought and trying to come up with some other way for Ryner to pay his debt. Finally the Hero opened its mouth: "Let's eat him."

"Eat me?" said Ryner with a worried look on his face, "I don't have time to be eaten! I have to get to the castle! Besides, I wouldn't taste very good. I'm lazy, so there's a lot of fat on me, and I haven't showered in a few days so I probably smell bad, and, and…"

"And," Ferris interrupted, "Ryner is going to the castle to help me free the dango from the clutches of the evil king." Ferris finally understood Ryner's recent behaviour. Obviously he was acting weird because he knew what Sion was up to. There must have been something in that secret letter, some sort of dango collection command, that Ryner had chosen to ignore. Now, Ryner was racing to the castle with no time to waste before Sion ate the last of the dango in the world. Ferris felt happy. Her best friend hadn't abandoned her; he had simply decided that dango was more important than she was. Dango was more important than anything.

"If that's the case," said the Hero, "we will let him go."

"But," the Demon jumped in, looking at Ferris, "you have to stay for a little while longer. So we don't get lonely."

Ryner immediately jumped over the other side of the fence, toward the castle. Ferris stared in his direction, wishing she could follow. "We'll let you go soon," promised the Hero. The Demon shouted excitedly, "we'll let you go after you sing for us!"

"Sing?" asked Ferris, "But I don't know any songs!"

"Surely you must know some songs," insisted the Demon.

"I know the ABC song," Ferris said after some thought. The Hero and Demon looked confused. Did they not know the ABCs?

"You know, the ABCs. Like the Alphabe…" Ferris was cut off by frantic shouting.

"ALPHA?" screamed the Hero.

"ALPHA?" shouted the Demon.

"ALPHA!?" came a booming voice from inside the teapot. "ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA AHAHAHAHAHA," it laughed. Red light emerged from the spout. The top popped off, releasing more red. Ferris thought the whole world would turn red. Out of the teapot and the red light crawled a creature even uglier than the Hero and the Demon. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA," it laughed some more.

"Now you've done it! You've awoken Alpha!" the Demon yelled at Ferris. The Hero lunged at the teapot and fought to get the lid back on. "AHAHAHA," Alpha continued to laugh as the world got more and more red. Ferris and the Demon ran over to help the Hero. Together they pushed down on the lid until it was firmly attached to the pot. However, the laughing and red did not stop.

"In here! Put it in here!" the Demon commanded, madly pointing to its eye. The Hero picked up the teapot, still holding the lid down, and poured Alpha and all its laughter and its red light straight out the spout and into the Demon's eye. The laughter stopped. The red stopped.

Ferris, after a quick look over her shoulder to make sure those two no longer needed her help, took advantage of the chaos and made her escape out the old garden gate and back into the forest.


	12. Chapter 12

"I'm hungry," said the Dango God to the Sleepy Guy. All that fighting had really worked up her appetite. "Make me some dango," she commanded.

The Sleepy Guy gave her an odd look, "You know I'm a terrible cook."

"Let's find a restaurant, then," suggested the Dango God.

And so, the pair walked and walked until they finally stumbled upon a small restaurant with six different assortments of dango on the menu. The shopkeeper appeared to be in the back room. Without bothering to ring the bell to call for service, the Dango God climbed over the counter and helped herself to plates and plates of dango. The Sleepy Guy, looking unimpressed, scolded her, "Ferris! You can't do that!"

"I am Dango God! When it comes to dango, I do what I want!"

"Ferris, get your ass out of there! The owner is going to call the cops!"

At that very moment, the elderly shopkeeper, having heard the commotion, emerged from the back. She gasped, seeing the Sleepy Guy and the Dango God wrestling on the floor behind the counter. There were empty dango sticks all over the place. All the dango was gone.

"I hope you brats can pay for all that dango!" she yelled. The pair looked up.

"Pay?" asked the Dango God, curiously.

"Pay!?" asked the Sleepy Guy, very worried.

"Pay," repeated the Elderly Shopkeeper.

"I am Dango God. I do not pay for dango," said the Dango God.

"We don't have any money!" said the Sleepy Guy.

"Dango must always be given to the Dango God, free of charge," said the Dango God.

"This crazy dango girl spent all our money on dango this morning!" said the Sleepy Guy.

The Elderly Shopkeeper stomped over to where the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy were still lying on the floor. "If you can't pay," she growled, "you will have to work."

And so the Sleepy Guy and the Dango God joined the workforce, finally making a useful contribution to society after so many years of doing nothing.

.

.

Meanwhile, at the very moment Ferris snuck out of the tea party and the Dango God got her first job, the Elderly Innkeeper arrived at the palace gates. A sign that read: "No Sleep Beyond This Point" hung off to the side. What odd bricks… she thought, looking at the high walls. The wind blew, and some papers seemed to flutter down from the top of the wall surrounding the palace property. The Innkeeper, not wasting any more time, quickly pushed open the gate and crept through. How strange… Everything seemed to be made out of the same strange bricks as the outer wall. The trees, the garden, the fountain, the palace itself, everything was made out of the odd material. The Elderly Innkeeper stepped closer, reaching out to examine the nearest rosebush. Is this…paper? Indeed, it appeared that the entire palace, everything the king owned, was made out of stacks and stacks of paperwork! Paperwork piled up higher and higher until it formed walls! Paperwork shaped into giant ornaments decorating either side of the path. Even the trees were made out of paperwork, as if they had been cut down, turned into official documents, and finally reshaped into their original form.

The Elderly Innkeeper could practically feel the light bulb above her head turn on. She was truly a brilliant old woman. She thought, surely there must be a file among all this with the names of those hooligans on it. Surely they had been arrested before, and their names were recorded in some sort of criminal documentation. If she could find that paper, she would find those kids who burned down her precious inn.

And so, feeling rather confident, she strolled over to the nearest stack of paperwork and began pulling out pages, giving them a quick glance before tossing them away.

.

.

"You're useless!" shouted the Sleepy Guy as the Dango God dropped yet another stack of plates. The Elderly Shopkeeper appeared from around the corner. "Do you have any idea how much dishes cost!? That'll add another five days to your debt!"

The Sleepy Guy groaned and glanced at the Dango God, but she didn't seem to notice. She was too preoccupied with sneaking bites of dango while the shopkeeper wasn't looking. If she kept this up, they would never be able to leave. Thanks to many batches of undercooked dango and overly strong tea (the Sleepy Guy's fault) and the disappearance of whatever edible dango they managed to produce (the Dango God's fault), they had accumulated 287 days of work before their debt would be paid off. Add on the broken dishes, damaged cooking equipment, snapped dango sticks and the kitchen fire that destroyed half the restaurant, and suddenly their work term had expanded to 928 days. 933 with the most recently dropped stack of dishes. The Dango God was furious. A God should not have to make her own dango. Before she had time to stop herself, she had punched the wall with enough force to break through. The Shopkeeper, who had moved to the other room, peered at her through the hole. Her face turned bright red. "An extra month!" she yelled, wondering if she would ever get the money those two owed her.

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Clough and Calne had suffered a fairly uneventful week. No parties, no cute girls to chase, no assassins trying to get at the king… They almost wished something exciting would happen. That is, until Clough opened the front door of the palace and saw the mess the king's front lawn was in. The stacks of paperwork had collapsed, leaving documents scattered all over the ground.

"Oh no!" sobbed Calne, "Sion will have us doing paperwork for weeks with no breaks if we don't get this cleaned up!"

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The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy had just begun their second week as restaurant employees. Thanks to countless cooking disasters, the Elderly Shopkeeper had finally decided to move them from the back room out onto the floor as waiters. It was going about as well as she expected.

"Ferris! Idiot! The soup is for table three!" screamed the Sleepy Guy, his patience having disappeared long ago.

"I will say it for the LAST TIME! I am not Ferris! I am Dango God!" screamed the Dango God as she approached table five with two steaming bowls of soup. However, the soup would never make it to the table. The Dango God spun around and dumped it over the Sleepy Guy's head. Ignoring his burning scalp, he picked up a ketchup bottle off the nearest table and squirted. The Dango God was quick to retaliate with mustard. She screamed "THUNDER!" as loud as she could, and the Sleepy Guy was covered in yellow. The customers slowly backed away and out the door. Food continued to fly.

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Noa, seated atop a white horse, looked back at her army. She hadn't expected such a good turnout, having opted for voluntary military service as opposed to conscription, but behind her stood at least ten thousand soldiers. All ready to invade Roland. All under her command. Nobody, not even the mighty Roland empire, could threaten the people of Estabul and get away with it. She would do whatever it took to keep her country safe. "Advance!" yelled Noa as her horse broke into a run toward Sion's castle.

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The Dango God sat in one corner of the room, the Sleepy Guy in another. Both faced away from each other, towards the walls. Both were tied to chairs, thanks to the Elderly Shopkeeper's surprising strength.

"I'm sorry," mumbled the Sleepy Guy.

"I'm sorry too," answered the Dango God.

"Maybe Sion will lend us money. He is the king, after all. He must be loaded with cash."

"King?" The Dango God thought for a moment. There was a king in her world, too. Maybe they knew each other. Maybe he could help her get home. "Let's go see him," she suggested.

"We'll just say it's for charity or something, and he's bound to give us the money we need."

"And then I can go home…" said the Dango God, not fully realizing she had spoken out loud. This world was beginning to tire her.

"What? You want to visit your scary brother?" the Sleepy Guy asked her. "Whatever. Now that we're friends again…"

"…We make our escape?"

"Of Course."

The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy, still tied to their chairs, hopped across the room and out the restaurant door. They hopped and hopped until the restaurant was out of sight.

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The Elderly Shopkeeper flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and re-emerged into the main part of the restaurant. Those thieving kids were nowhere to be seen. Even the chairs she had tied them to were gone. Her money was gone.

Or was it? She thought and thought, trying to figure out a way to get revenge on those troublemakers who had eaten most of her dango supply and destroyed her restaurant. She looked around at the burnt up kitchen, the trash can full of broken glass and the food covering the walls, floor and ceiling. Surely this was a crime great enough to take directly to the king. The Elderly Shopkeeper packed a small travel bag and set out for the royal castle.


	13. Chapter 13

Ferris arrived at the castle the next morning, exhausted. Her night had been far more terrifying than anything she had ever experienced—and it took a lot to scare the fearless Ferris Eris. She had spent hours lost in the forest with all sorts of strange creatures. Night came quickly, and in the darkness she lost the path. In the thickest part of the trees, with the cries of wild animals surrounding her, her mind began to play tricks on her, showing her things that she knew could not be real. The scary animals and plants around her had to be hallucinations, or dreams. There was no way they could be real, she told herself. Still, she wished Ryner had been there to watch her back. Or at the very least, he, the slower runner of the two, could serve as a meal to distract the beasts while she made an escape. Nevertheless, she seemed to have survived the night alone making it to morning in one piece.

As Ferris thought back to the previous night, she realized she had no idea how she had gotten out of the forest. Yet here she was, seated on the ground outside the massive castle wall made out of stacks of paper of all things. The last thing she remembered was being lost with all those beasts. She thought she remembered Lucile's voice, as well. She thought she remembered him telling her to sleep, that the beasts wouldn't hurt her. And after that—nothing. That was the last thing she recalled before waking up at the castle.

Ferris stood up, not believing the sight before her. Papers were everywhere: they formed the walls, the sidewalk, and even covered the ground. How could Sion let this much work pile up? Ferris thought back to the king's dango theft. Clearly he was evil. Since he was evil, clearly he had been saving all this paperwork for Ferris and Ryner to do when they returned. There was no other logical explanation as to why there would be so much of it lying around.

"Excuse me, miss," said a voice from behind Ferris. She turned to see one of Sion's henchmen, probably also evil, with his arms full of paper. Clough, she thought his name was.

"Oh no," Ferris shouted, "There is NO WAY I'm doing all that paperwork!"

"Do it?" asked Clough, confused. "Of course we don't want you to do it. We just want to pick up those papers you're standing on. If we let Sion see the mess his garden is in he's going to make us do it!"

Ferris stepped off the papers and Calne quickly grabbed them off the ground. "That's right," he said, "If we don't get this picked up Sion will sentence us to 100 years of work, no breaks!"

Ferris thought. If Sion was willing to treat these two as slaves, they probably weren't evil like him. In fact, they were probably quite similar to herself, forced to work impossibly long hours by the cruel king. Ferris, destined to be the heroine fighting injustice, made her decision: "Well then, I'll help you clean these up."

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"A little more to the right. No, no, move them left a little more. Perfect. Set them down there."

"She's no help at alllllll," Calne whined to Clough, low enough that Ferris, seated on the ground with a cup of tea, couldn't hear. Clough and Calne had spent the whole morning collecting, organizing, and stacking papers while Ferris lounged around lazily and gave orders.

"Ahh," Ferris sighed, "all this hard work is making me hungry. Too bad there's no Dango around…"

Ferris made the comment for two reasons: first, she genuinely wished she had dango at that moment. Second, she thought she might be able to get some information out of Sion's two slaves. They spent a lot of time around the castle, so it was possible that they knew where he was hiding the dango.

"Dango?" answered Clough, "You actually like that stuff? It's pretty disgusting, if you ask me."

Dango? Disgusting? Ferris's face went red with rage. How dare he insult the sacred dango? How dare he? She drew her sword, but right before she could strike a newly formed stack of papers came crashing between them. From the flurry of documents emerged Ryner, ears poking up high above his head.

"Sorry! I'd love to help, but I have somewhere to be!" he shouted over his shoulder before he ran through the castle doors.

The fallen papers, and even Ryner's sudden appearance, were only minor worries in Ferris's mind compared to Clough's major offence. She raised her sword once more. Clough ran, grabbing Calne by the wrist and dragging him along. "She's crazy," he shouted as Ferris chased them around the stacks of papers. They lunged, dived and sprinted through the forest of papers so quickly, Ferris swinging her sword so savagely, that all the morning's progress was ruined. Not a single organized pile could be seen anywhere, and, once again, papers covered the ground.

Suddenly the three came to a stop, paralyzed in fear. They heard the scrape of the heavy castle doors being pushed open. The trio turned to see Sion standing on the castle steps, an army of guards behind him.


	14. Chapter 14

The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy arrived outside the castle after a long day of running. With the Elderly Shopkeeper on their trail, they had no choice but to run. When they got too tired to run, they hopped onto the roof of a fancy looking carriage; the greedy noble inside didn't even notice. The Dango God looked out over the side enjoying the landscape while the Sleepy Guy curled up and had a nap. The Dango God thought it would be funny to push her sleeping companion off the edge of the roof, but, considering their current situation, decided it was not a good idea. The carriage took them through the forest, down the main street of Roland's capital city, and finally came to a stop at the castle gates. The driver whispered a few words to the guards and the gates opened, allowing them to pass. The carriage parked at the base of the huge castle, and the door swung open. The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy, crouched low on top of the carriage to avoid being spotted, couldn't see who came out. The Sleepy Guy honestly didn't care who owned the carriage; that is, until he heard a waving servant call out "Welcome back, your majesty!"

"Shit!" cursed the Sleepy Guy in a whispered voice. He grabbed the Dango God and pulled her off the roof and down to the other side of the carriage where there was no chance they would be spotted.

"But I thought we were coming to see the king…" questioned the Dango God before the Sleepy Guy clamped a hand over her too-loud mouth.

"That's true," the Sleepy Guy whispered in her ear, "but we need to approach him strategically if we want him to pay our debts. We need to catch him in a good mood, and since he is probably coming back from a meeting with some noble, he is most definitely not in a good mood."

"So what do we do?" asked the Dango God.

"We make ourselves comfortable in the castle and wait for him to lighten up a bit."

"Make ourselves comfortable? Some food would definitely make me comfortable right now."

And so the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy crept out from behind the carriage and scurried through the side door of the castle, their presence remaining unknown to the King and his guards.

Soon after that, the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy stood in the centre of the palace kitchen. The cooks were nowhere to be seen; they were probably still outside welcoming the King. The Dango God pulled the cover off of the closest pot. She dipped her spoon in and scooped some into her mouth. "Ugh," she complained, "This soup is too hot!"

The Sleepy Guy was across the room digging through the fridge. He pulled out a tub of ice cream. When he tried to push his spoon in, however, he found it was still too frozen. "This is too cold!" he complained.

The Dango God had already moved on. She peeked inside a container. "Dango!" she exclaimed happily. The container was soon empty.

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"Your majesty!" a cook came running out of the kitchen and into the King's office. "Someone's broken into the kitchen! All the food's gone!"

The King hurried to investigate. He burst through the kitchen door, and all the food was indeed gone.

"Guards!" he called, "Somebody's been eating my food!"

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The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy had finished off all the food in the kitchen. By the time they were done with the dango, the soup had cooled down enough to eat. When the soup was gone, the ice cream had defrosted and they ate that too. They moved through the cupboards and drawers, devouring everything in their path. They were starving after their long day of running.

Bellies a little too full, the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy needed a place to sit down. "How about in here?" asked the Dango God, pointing into the King's empty office. "Looks good," said the Sleepy Guy and he plopped down into the King's chair.

"Hey!" yelled the Dango God, "I need to sit too!"

She tried to push the Sleepy Guy off the chair but he wouldn't budge. She tried pulling; he still would not move. Finally she gave up and sat on top of him.

"You're a little heavy…" he complained. The Dango God began to make a fist, but before it could connect with the Sleepy Guy's face the chair collapsed under their weight.

"Oh no," moaned the Sleepy Guy, "We'd better hide. If anybody finds out that we broke the chair, we'll never get the money we need."

The pair peeked out the door to make sure there was nobody in the hallway and crept out of the office.

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The King returned to his office after providing the guards with all the details of the disappearing food. He couldn't see his chair. "How odd…" he mumbled to himself. He looked around. In the corner of the room, he saw a blanket thrown on top of something lumpy. He lifted it, revealing the broken pieces of his favourite chair.

"Guards," he called, "Somebody's been sitting in my chair! And they broke it!"

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"Do you really think we hid it well enough?" asked the Dango God as she and the Sleepy Guy walked through the dark hallway.

"What? Of course," he answered. "The blanket thing was brilliant. There's no way he'll ever find that chair."

The Dango God still wasn't convinced, but she didn't worry about it too much.

"Hey, I'm pretty tired," commented the Dango God absentmindedly.

"Really?" asked the Sleepy Guy. "Let's go find a bed!" he said a bit too excitedly. The Dango God couldn't help wondering if he was a pervert or something. Whatever. She was too tired to worry about it, so she allowed the Sleepy Guy lead her back down the hall and into the King's room.

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"What a long day," yawned the King as he made his way to his room at the end of the day for a much deserved rest. He pushed open the door only to see two figures asleep soundly, one at each end of the large bed.

"You two!" he shouted.

"Oh hey," said the Sleepy Guy, "We need to borrow some money."

Before the King could respond, either to deny the Sleepy Guy's request or to kick his two friends out of his room, a knock sounded at the door. ""Your majesty," said the guard on the other side of the door, "there's an old lady in your office demanding to see you. Something about kids destroying her restaurant."

The King sighed. He walked back out the door and followed the guard to his office, leaving the Sleepy Guy and the Dango God alone in his room.


	15. Chapter 15

Sion stood at the top of the castle steps, looking around in disbelief. "Who made this mess!?" he shouted, eyes wandering over the wreck that used to be his garden. Finally, his eyes came to a stop on Clough, Calne and Ferris, still frozen in place surrounded by a flurry of papers.

"You three!" he shouted angrily, "what happened?"

"Well you see…" Calne began.

"What happened was…" Clough continued.

"It was like this when we found it…"

"We didn't do it…"

"I sentence you to ten thousand years of labour! Guards! Chain them to their desks so they can never leave!" Sion commanded his subordinates, and they quickly began to close in on the trio.

Ferris was suddenly overcome with feeling. She interrupted the king with a roar: "Where's the dango!? I know you're hiding it somewhere! Tell me where it is!"

"You want the dango?" Sion asked with a mischievous grin, waving his hand to stop the advancing guards. His afternoon had just gotten a lot more interesting. "I'll tell you where the dango is, but only if you can beat me in a contest."

Ferris was very suspicious at this point, but she had no choice but to accept the challenge. She was certain she was falling into the evil king's trap, but the people of Roland needed her you save the dango. The poor dango, cold and alone in some hidden dungeon with nobody to enjoy its heavenly flavour. Her mind was made up. "I accept your challenge!" she called up to the king.

Sion smiled at her, "But you haven't even heard what kind of contest it will be."

"I don't care," answered Ferris with perfect confidence. "I am fighting in the name of dango. There is no challenge I will not overcome."

"I see," replied Sion, "What if I asked you to travel the world, assembling magical artefacts? What if I would only give you the dango in exchange for those artefacts? Would you still accept my challenge?"

"…" Ferris thought for a moment. That certainly did seem troublesome. Travelling the world, who knows what horrors she would face? But that didn't matter, if it was for the sake of dango. She could defeat any obstacle if she had dango by her side. Finally she answered: "I will still accept!"

"Haha," Sion laughed evilly, "But that would take far too long! The contest I have in mind is something that can be resolved this afternoon. I propose we have a race."

"A race? You want us to run in a race?" Ferris would certainly win if she were to race Sion. After all, she was an extraordinarily talented lady who trained every day, while Sion constantly sat on his butt writing reports. But her hopes of an easy victory were quickly destroyed.

"Not exactly," Sion replied, "I have a different kind of race in mind. We will have a paperwork race. We will collect the paperwork all over my garden, complete it, and then file it into the correct pile. Whoever has the biggest stack of finished paperwork by sundown will be the winner!"

"Fine!" Ferris answered. "Only for dango will I submit myself to this torture!"

"Wonderful!" Sion exclaimed. "If you win, I will tell you where the dango is. If I win, you will work for me forever!"

Two hours later, Ferris and Sion were seated on opposite sides of the garden, each building up their paperwork piles. Sion's was clearly bigger than Ferris's; Sion was clearly cheating. His most trusted subordinates, apart from Clough and Calne who had made their escape earlier as Sion and Ferris were arranging their challenge, were helping Sion with his work. With ten or so subordinates aiding him, he was at a huge advantage compared to Ferris who was working alone. To make matters worse, Sion was being unbelievably hard on his workers. Those who moved too slowly were sentenced to ten thousand years of labour without rest. Then, when Ferris's pile grew too high, Sion sent his creepiest subordinate, Miran Froaude, to collapse it. She tried to catch the papers as they fell, but in the end she had no choice but to start over. The more Ferris watched, the more she was convinced that the king was indeed a slave driver operating under the control of the forces of evil. However, this realization only strengthened her resolve to free the dango and return it to the people.

Ferris looked up, needing to rest her eyes after staring at the small writing for so long. She looked around her at the ground that was still covered in papers, and then over at Sion who had already built himself several new paperwork trees and statues. He and his henchmen were all intensely focused on the task before them. They didn't even notice when a smiling face appeared behind the king.

"Ferris," said a voice that only she could hear.

"Not now, Lucile," she mumbled in return, afraid of what her brother might do.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Sion.

"Nobody!" Ferris answered a little too quickly.

"You'd better work faster, or you'll never get your dango back," he warned.

Lucile spoke to Ferris again, "You want to win back your dango?"

Ferris watched in horror as her brother walked up behind one of Sion's paperwork sculptures. "Maybe I should help my little sister," he said in the most terrifying voice Ferris had ever heard. "NO!" she cried too late as Lucile moved to push over the paperwork. It came crashing down, littering the ground at Sion's feet.

"What did you do!" he shrieked, pointing at Ferris. Meanwhile, Lucile was making his way towards a second pile of paperwork. That one collapsed too. Followed by a third, and a fourth. Lucile smiled his wicked smile as all of Sion's hard work was ruined.

"I'll never give you back your dango!" Sion screamed as the papers settled on the ground.

"Shall we torment him some more?" Lucile asked Ferris. Ferris lunged forward to stop her brother right as he took hold of Sion's cape and pulled. Sion, like his mountains of paperwork, went crashing to the ground with a thud.

"I SENTENCE YOU TO A MILLION YEARS OF PAPERWORK FOR THIS!" he screamed, unaware of Lucile's presence and believing Ferris had pushed him. Lucile chuckled in the background, winked at Ferris, and disappeared.

"Wait!" a girl's voice cried from underneath the fallen papers. Out crawled Sion's secretary, Eslina. "Shouldn't we give her a trial?"

"A trial?" Sion questioned, not believing what Eslina had just suggested.

"Just a short trial," she tried again. "I'm sure my brother would have been in favour of a trial and…"

"Fine!" Sion sighed. "We'll give her a trial. And THEN I will sentence her to a million years of paperwork!"

The king got up off the ground, dusted himself off, and turned to head inside. "By the way," he called to Ferris over his shoulder, "I don't know anything about your dango. I just went along with your stupid story to trick you into helping me clean up the garden. And it was working perfectly, until a minute ago."

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The Elderly Innkeeper, after having searched the king's garden of paperwork for information on those brats, entered the castle to look for new clues. As she searched, she overheard some servants fussing over a trial later that day. "A trial," she said to herself, "Maybe it's a trial for those troublemakers." Those kids would have definitely been arrested for some other crime by now. Or maybe that pretty blonde girl she had been following earlier was getting arrested. Or some other noisy kid. It seemed all the young people these days were criminals. The Elderly Innkeeper felt truly blessed to live in a country ruled by a wise old king who understood the terrors caused by today's youth.

And so, the Elderly Innkeeper found herself pushing open the doors of the king's court to watch the trial. She stepped in and glanced up to the king's throne but what she saw made her stop in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. On the throne sat not a wise old man, but instead a young kid who was probably still in his late teens. The Elderly Innkeeper's face turned red. "He's one of them! The king is a brat! The king is none other than one of those awful, troublemaking, destructive youths!"


	16. Chapter 16

The Elderly Shopkeeper had never met the King before today. He was much younger than she had thought…

The King interrupted her thoughts. "Well, I can't just arrest them without giving them a trial."

Here she was, a day's travel away from home, seated on the plush couch in the King's office, so close to making the brats pay for what they did; and yet, here was the King, young enough to possibly be in league with those brats, refusing to administer punishment without a trial. But he was the King, so she had no choice but to go along with his idea of justice. The Elderly Shopkeeper sighed. Of course he would demand a trial. After all, she had no witnesses to say that those kids wrecked her restaurant. She would have to think of something quick, or else the kids might go free.

Suddenly, the Elderly Shopkeeper had a brilliant idea. Those kids would pay, regardless of the outcome of the trial. She smiled from ear to ear.

"Of course, your majesty. Shall we arrange the trial for tomorrow afternoon?"

With all the details worked out, the Elderly Shopkeeper left the office with a sinister grin on her face.

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"Hey! You guys!" the King shouted to wake the two still asleep in his bed. A whole twenty four hours had passed since the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy had fallen asleep in his room. It had also been twenty four hours since the King's meeting with the Elderly Shopkeeper; the trial was about to begin.

"Ugh. What time s'it?" mumbled the still half asleep Sleepy Guy.

"You're trial's about to start."

"Trial? Idunno what y'r talkin' 'bout."

The King, quite fed up with his best friend's laziness, grabbed the bottom edge of the blanket and pulled, exposing two pairs of bare feet to the cold air. Now the Dango God was half awake. "Why'd ya do that?" the Sleepy Guy questioned.

The Dango God, on the other hand, barely noticed the missing blanket. She was too busy paying attention to the weight of the Sleepy Guy's arm flung over her back. "Pervert!" she shouted, fully awake now, cursing herself for ignoring her suspicions of the day before.

The Sleepy Guy tried to defend his honour. "I'm not a pervert! I probably just moved around in my sleep!"

"So You admit it! Even in your sleep you're a pervert!"

"Even if I was a pervert I wouldn't want to get close to a gross girl like you!"

"How dare you!?" The Dango God, who was becoming quite skilled with her sword, pointed said sword directly at the Sleepy Guy's neck.

The King, despite the severity of the charges laid against his friends, couldn't help but laugh at the scene playing out in front of him. Still giggling, he took his friends by the hand and pulled them toward the courtroom.

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The Elderly Shopkeeper hadn't slept at all that night. She had been far too busy putting her plan into action. Those kids wouldn't even see it coming. Neither would the King, for that matter. If he decided they were guilty, he would have no problem with her plan. If he found them falsely innocent, her plan would be written off as a tragic accident. Either way, those brats would pay.

The Elderly Shopkeeper had gone directly to the courtroom after her meeting with the king. There was no trial scheduled for the rest of the day so she was all alone. Working with the lights off to stay hidden, she had first ripped up the floorboards directly under the chairs that the crazy dango girl and her lazy friend would occupy. Next, she dug a large tunnel in the ground where the floor had been. She had no idea how deep it was; all she knew is that she hadn't stopped digging all night or the next morning. The tunnel went straight down into the earth for miles, perhaps farther than any tunnel had ever gone. One thing was certain: it would be impossible to survive a fall. As the afternoon sun began to shine through the windows, the Elderly Shopkeeper replaced the floorboards over her tunnel, nailing them loosely. She suspected the nails would hold for about half an hour after the trial began. She quickly put back what would be the Dango God and Sleepy Guy's chairs and snuck out of the courtroom. She no longer had to worry about gathering evidence or preparing her case; the trial only needed to last half an hour.

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The Dango God and the Sleepy Guy sat in their chairs at the front of the room. They were only fifteen minutes into the trial but they were already bored out of their minds. That Shopkeeper they had worked for was presenting all kinds of evidence against them, but neither was really paying attention to what was being said.

"Do you think there's any dango around?" whispered the Dango God. She went unheard, the Sleepy Guy already snoring quietly beside her.

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Fifteen more minutes, thought the Elderly Shopkeeper. She only had to stall for fifteen more minutes. Those two kids were disrespectful as always, one snoring and practically falling off the chair and the other's stomach growling loud enough to be heard at the back of the room. She held up a broken chair leg, preparing to explain how it had been smashed in a fight involving the two accused. Fifteen more minutes.

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How has it only been fifteen minutes? the King thought to himself as he glanced at the clock. He wished he could be more like his best friend, flopped over in the chair and snoring. However he, unlike his best friend, had a duty to pay attention to whatever nonsense his subjects brought to his attention. Still, a nap would be nice. This entire trial was pointless anyway. He was hardly planning on imprisoning his friends. He needed them to collect the Hero Relics, a job he could depend on no one else for. All along the plan had been to pay the Elderly Shopkeeper for the damage, out of the two troublemakers' pay checks of course. Having their purses empty for the next few months would be punishment enough. He heard a stomach growl. He heard a quiet snore. He vaguely heard the Shopkeeper shouting as she waved around a chair leg. The King looked back to the clock just as the minute hand clicked into its new position. How has it only been sixteen minutes? the King thought to himself as the Sleepy Guy, without waking, flopped off of the chair and onto the floor a few feet away.

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The Elderly Shopkeeper excitedly turned her eyes to the clock. It had been exactly twenty nine minutes and thirty seconds since the trial had begun. She threw down the empty ketchup bottles she was currently presenting to the jury. "Well," she announced, "It's about time for me to make my escape."

The Elderly Shopkeeper spun on her heels and ran as fast as her old legs could take her.

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What just happened? the King wondered, completely baffled by the actions of the Elderly Shopkeeper. Exactly twenty nine minutes and thirty seconds into the trial she had bolted out of the room. Huh, the King thought, Maybe she was as bored with this as I was.

Just then, a rumble that sounded nothing like a stomach or a snore came from the Dango God and the Sleepy Guy's direction.

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The Dango God watched the Elderly Shopkeeper bolt out the door. She looked first toward the Sleepy Guy dozing on the floor, then turned to the King. "Looks like the trial's over," she declared, "Can I get some dango now?"

The words were barely out of her mouth before she heard a loud rumble from beneath her. "What…"

The floorboards collapsed.

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Hearing a rumble and a crash, the Sleepy Guy finally opened his eyes and sat up. He looked over at the area previously occupied by his chair. He, in his sleep, had flopped just far enough from the damaged floor to avoid the fall. His companion, it appeared, had not been so lucky.

"Hey," he yelled into the opening in the ground "You okay down there?"

No answer.


	17. Chapter 17

The Elderly Innkeeper looked back and forth between the brat king, the brat blonde girl, and, there sitting off to the side, that quintet of brats who burned her inn to the ground. She knew in her heart that this young king had to be working together with those other troublemaking youngsters. Children could not be trusted. She knew that, if justice were to be had, she would have to take justice into her own hands.

The Elderly Innkeeper, after recovering from her surprise at seeing the youthful king, spun around and marched straight out of the paper castle, down the paper steps, and across the still destroyed paper garden, stopping right outside the castle front gate. Her problem had an obvious solution. She would set a trap, build a giant wall keeping those kids inside the castle where she would imprison them forever!

There was one small problem with the Elderly Innkeeper's plan; when she arrived at the castle gate, a wall was already being built.

"Well," she said to herself, "This makes less work for me."

She smiled happily and returned to the trial.

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Several hours earlier, Noa and her thousands of soldiers peered through the trees outside Sion's palace, hidden safely in the darkness of the forest. Noa, who was closest to the castle, peered out to spy on what appeared to be Roland's king and a few servants doing paperwork in the middle of the garden. That evil king and his men were probably plotting attack strategies and army formations. Now was her time to act; to protect her people, she had to make sure nobody ever left this castle again. She immediately set her men to work cutting trees and building a tall wall. As Sion worked on paperwork in his garden, Noa and her soldiers worked on building the tallest wall the world had ever seen. They worked through the morning, continuing late into the evening and only pausing for a short rest at night. They resumed work the next day, building until the wall reached all the way up into the sky.

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Ferris was confused. Halfway through her trial, some old lady she had never seen before burst through the courtroom doors, yelled something about Sion being a brat, and left. Then she returned a few minutes later with a smile on her face. Weird.

Ferris didn't pay much attention to the old lady, too focused on Ryner, who still had his ears, sitting beside Sion.

"Ugh," whined Ryner, "Why are you making me attend something boring like this? What kind of merciless king are you?"

Sion laughed. Ryner laughed too when Sion playfully tried to push him off his chair.

Now Ferris was very confused. Were these two… friends? Maybe she had misunderstood and Ryner was in fact working with Sion to hide the dango. Sion said he didn't know where the dango was, but it was more than likely that he was lying. She pulled out her sword, preparing to chop Ryner in half for lying to her, when a sudden pounding came at the door of the courtroom.

"Open up!" shouted a female voice. The door was immediately broken down, revealing Princess Noa and an army of thousands of men. "There is no escape!"

No more than five seconds passed before the courtroom erupted into chaos. Sion began shouting orders at his subordinates, setting up some sort of defensive magic. When Milk and her team arrived on the scene to provide support, that same old lady from before stood up and began to give chase. Ryner, fearing for Milk's safety as the crazy woman shouted threats, took off after them. Ferris was close behind Ryner, planning on taking advantage of the mess in the courtroom to capture him and demand he tell her the location of the kidnapped dango. The group ran past the soldiers and out of the castle, Milk and her team leading, followed closely by the Elderly Innkeeper, Ryner and Ferris. Following Ferris was Noa's army, trying to catch any escaping Roland soldiers. Sion followed the army, trying desperately to gain control of the situation.

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The Elderly Innkeeper was very pleased when the five kids who burned her inn appeared in the middle of the chaos. Spells and weapons were being thrown around the room, but the Elderly Innkeeper ignored it all, quickly grabbing a broom and running toward the kids. They abruptly stopped whatever spells they had been trying to cast, turning to look at her. The enraged look on her face and the terrifying words coming out of her mouth apparently frightened them; they began running as fast as they could in the opposite direction. The Elderly Innkeeper let out the most insane laugh any of the kids had ever heard. She couldn't help but laugh, knowing those kids were running straight towards the tall wall surrounding the castle. In her excitement, she didn't even notice the boy with rabbit ears or the blonde girl following close behind her. Somewhere in the background, she could hear Sion trying to negotiate with the attacking princess. Something about a misunderstanding. She didn't really care. What she wanted was right in front of her, about to run into a wall.

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Milk and her group ran into a wall. Ferris certainly didn't remember a wall there, but she had seen much stranger things happen over the last few days to question it. More importantly, Noa's army appeared to be giving chase, Sion on their heels begging them to stop. Ferris, if she wanted to escape all this troublesome action, had no choice but to climb.

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"This is bad," the Elderly Innkeeper said. "Bad bad bad."

She looked down at the kids tangled up in the wall, then looked back at the fast approaching army. If she wanted to escape the fighting, she would have to do it now. She glanced at the brats one last time as a pretty blonde girl jumped over her head and began to climb. She made up her mind. The attacking army would take care of her inn's destroyers. Leaving the kids she had worked so hard to catch behind, she took off up the wall after the other girl. Looking down, she saw a rabbit eared boy trying to untangle the others from the thick vines and logs making up the high wall. She moved her eyes back to the blonde hair that belonged to her target. If she could catch this one, at least, her troubles would be worth it.

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Ferris looked down from her position halfway up the wall. Down below, she could see the crazy old woman coming after her.

"What did I do this time?" Ferris whined, wondering why the bad things always seemed to happen to her. Even farther down she could see Ryner trying to get Milk out of the wall's vines. The army was only a few meters away. She decided Ryner could take care of himself and kept climbing.

Suddenly, dango began to fall from the sky.

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"Dango?" said Milk.

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"Dango?" said Ryner.

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"Dango?" said Sion as an idea popped into his head. He gathered as much dango as he could into his arms and ran toward Noa and her army, followed closely by Clough and Calne. Noa turned to face them, clearly confused by the food falling from the sky.

"A peace offering!" announced Sion. "We had no intention of fighting you. We just sent Ferris to… uh… invite you to our dango party? We never wanted to start a war?" It sounded much more like a question than Sion had intended, but it was the best he could do given the situation. How lucky he was that this mysterious dango storm had begun.

Claugh walked slowly toward Noa and presented her with an armful of dango. She accepted it hesitantly, still confused, but broke into a smile as a dango stick fell from above right onto Clough's head.

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"Dango!" Ferris screamed excitedly. She had found it! Of course Sion had been hiding the dango on top of the huge wall! The dango must have sensed her presence and begun to fall as she approached. Ferris climbed higher and higher, as high as she could go. She climbed past the clouds and the sky, up into the stars. She climbed and climbed until she entered a narrow tunnel at the top on the wall. She grabbed onto the wall of the vertical tunnel and continued to climb.

Unknown to Ferris, hidden among the vines and tree trunks of the wall was the wood of Dango Tree she had cut a few days earlier.


	18. Chapter 18

Ferris' climbing eventually turned into floating as she made her way up the narrow tunnel. She floated and floated, and as Ferris floated up another young woman fell down. The two inevitably met in the middle.

It happened so quickly, Ferris almost missed it. The thick cloud of falling dango stopped suddenly, and Ferris looked down as the last one tumbled past her. Below, in the space between herself and the last dango, was a beautiful young lady who looked very much like herself. "Another Ferris?" questioned Ferris out loud in surprise with a very troubled expression on her face.

"I am not Ferris! I am Dango God!" shouted the Dango God for the very last time as she fell back down towards a magical dango tree that would once again connect her to her own world. Ferris continued to float back up to the world that had caused the Dango God so much trouble. No more dango fell from the sky. Somewhere along the journey, Ferris fell asleep.

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"Ferris. Ferris? Ferris!"

Ferris could hear a familiar voice calling to her and she slowly opened her eyes. There beside her, illuminated by the light of a candle, was Ryner. Plain, boring Ryner without any sign of long ears or a cotton tail. Ferris had no idea why she had been expecting him to look like a rabbit.

"Ryner!" she shouted, showing an uncharacteristic amount of emotion as she threw her arms around her partner. They were in the room she usually slept in when she visited Sion's castle. She looked around the room at the walls. Why was she surprised to see they were made of stone and not paper?

"Thank goodness…" he mumbled, "You had me worried, with you being unconscious when we finally managed to fish you out of that big hole."

Ferris came back to her senses when she felt Ryner return her hug. A blush coloured her cheeks as she reached for her sword. With a cry of "Pervert!" Ferris proceeded to destroy the room in an attempt to kill her attacker. When she was finished she charged through the now broken door, unaware of the king standing just around the corner.

"Ferris!" Sion smiled at her, "I'm glad to see you're more or less back to normal."

"Yeah, me too," came Ryner's lazy voice from where he lay on the floor. "She's been acting weird ever since you gave us that day off. She seems better now though."

"Day off? When did this evil king ever give us a day off?"

"Don't you remember? Sion sent us a fancy time-off letter and everything. We spent the entire day sleeping in some tree somewhere in Nelpha."

Ferris thought for a moment. She had the feeling something odd had happened on that day… Somewhere in the back of her mind was the fading memory of the letter, delivered to a burning inn. Were Milk and Toale there? It would make sense, since Ryner said they had been in Nelpha… Somewhere else in the back of her mind was the memory of her brother sending her on some mission, saying something about a letter from the king and having free time… And hadn't she fallen down a hole on that day? Her memories were jumbled.

Ferris remembered something else.

Suddenly, turning back toward Sion, Ferris shrieked, "You kidnapped the dango!"

He and Ryner laughed, relieved to see that their friend was okay.

Ferris almost smiled too, overcome by the feeling of a very scary dream fading away.


	19. Epilogue

Somewhere deep in the Roland countryside, two Very Elderly Bed-And-Breakfast Owners sat behind the front desk of their little business enjoying their morning tea. They had done this very same thing almost every morning since the day fate brought them together twenty years earlier.

One of the two Very Elderly Bed-And-Breakfast Owners found her thoughts wandering back to the day they had first met. It seemed like her thoughts had been wandering to that day a lot lately. She remembered the brat king, certainly not a brat anymore at the age of forty, desperately trying to pull a blonde girl from a hole in the floor. She remembered her surprise when an old woman who looked very much like herself had also been found in that hole. She remembered apologizing to that woman, and learning that that woman was also on a quest for revenge. Yes, it had been fate that had brought them together.

One with a background in innkeeping, the other with a background in restaurant management, a bed-and-breakfast seemed like the obvious direction to go in once they had decided to become business partners. They planned, and they built, and their project was successful. Now, as they enjoyed the happy days of their old age, the two Very Elderly Bed-And-Breakfast Owners hardly ever even glanced at the fading, torn Wanted posters that decorated the wall of their little bed-and-breakfast. The blonde girl, the lazy boy, the curly haired girl and her friends were all distant memories.


End file.
